Wyrding,Egotism, Adeptery and Shamanism. The magic of my world.

[Logos&Eidos]

I've been working on the magic systems of my world for quite some time going back and forth with various iterations of certain ideas. Well I'd Like to present, for your evaluation what I have so far.


Wyrd magic: Is the subtlest and in some respects the most powerful system of magic. It is the ability to influence what can and should be the phenomenon of probability and causality. This is the magic of the gods it is how there will is made manifest in the world, and through drawing upon a god's numina a follower can partake of this power. A god's influence upon the wyrd is determined by their nature as being and what they hold dear; resulting in gods having specific areas of influence. What can this magic actually do? It can twist the odds in relation to any phenomenon within a god’s purview. Blessing to help one succeed or curses to insure disasters. This power can also be invested into objects or places making them sanctified. The rarest ability is idealization, the ability to make a thing the very ideal of what it is.


Egotist’s Way: Is not even viewed as something supernatural in universe. Rather it is seen as a complex and difficult discipline through which a devote can gain physical and mental abilities above and beyond what would otherwise possible for members of their race. The arts of psyche and soma entail the devote through meditative techniques and special exercises. Learning to take control of and access physical and mental faculties that normally are dormant and or autonomic. They can also push their minds and bodies far further than any uninitiated, to the point of nearing the superhuman. True master can develop abilities that from our point of view would be seen as supernatural. Situational and environmental awareness that are effectively clairvoyance, reaction times born of a finely hone intuition and attunement to the world that so fast as to be precognition. Burning the their life-force(native prima) to fuel truly superhuman feats of physicality.

Adeptery: This is magic system that I had the most difficulty with development wise. I've gone through at least six version of this one system of magic.

Adeptery is the most overt and overtly powerful system of magic. Its practitioners called Adepts draw prima (shortened form of prima-materia) from the environment and use it to generate a prima-manus, a force-field that acts like a metaphysical limb.

Adeptery is divided into two categories.

Native Arts.

Duron: involves harding prima into a quasi-substance,which can be used to attack,defend and move objects around.

Anima: also called "life arts/works, it can used to heal,control and augment living systems. it can even convey and effect thoughts and emotions.

Portalis: involves using the prima-spectrum to move or store matter and information, phasing through matter by partially transitioning ones self into a prima-signal. Powerful practitioners can even open windows into the spectrum and physical enter it.

Fellpyre: Involves generating a destructive force that resembles a ghostly, liquid, flame. This fell flame gives no heat,instead radiating a prickly ravenous intensity. Fellflame soaks into matter like a fluid and consumes it like acid.

Disruption: Involves interfering with magic effects, and include suppression and counteraction. Skilled practitioners can even cause destructive feedback and harm enemy magic users.

Elemental Arts.

Every person has a connection to the elements called an affinity, in most cases only a small number of those affinities are strong enough for the element to be controlled. The most common number of strong affinities are,one,two and three;past three they are exponentially rare.



The Elements.

• Heat.
• Light.
• Electricity
  
• Carnum: Flesh, Blood, Bone.
• Geos: Stone, Metal (which includes Air/oxygen do to its metalloid nature), Crystal (which includes water do it's crystalline structure).
• Florem: Herba, Fungum.
  
• Fortis: the element of physical forces gravitational and inertial. (which I can't help but feel is redundant)
  
  

Sprit Arts/Shamanism: Is another magic system that took a number of revisions before I was comfortable implementing it.

The Element spirits were born in the elder times when the soul shard that broke off from the gods when they crossed over into the mortal world fell into the elemental planes. Those shards meshed with substance of the planes and would give rise to a new form of life. On occasion when the conditions are right elementals cross into the mortal world, at locations resonant with their elements. However elements cannot naturally exist in the mortal world and they soon begin to petrify becoming pure crystallized essence of their element. Elementals can stave off death by consuming natural sources of their element. The only way to truly avoid death is to fuse with a compatible life form normally animals, but also people with a strong and matching affinity. These elemental-hybrids are the source of many mythic beasts such as the fire breathing dragon.


The only other way for an elemental to survive in the world is through biding it to vessel, a crafted object which will insulate the elemental against the suffocating influence of the mundane world. However vessels can also be designed to control elementals. Should a controlled elemental ever escape it will be in a most irate mood, property damage and loss of life are sure to follow.

Shamans are rare individuals who possess a rapport with elementals, they can sense the, communicate, and tame them. Some Adepts can also control elementals through the use of their affinity, the resonance between themselves and the elementals. However unlike the bond between a shaman and their elementals, what Adepts do is in acts of subjugation and elementals hate them for it;should an Adept's control ever falter the Elemental will either flee or attack them.


Magitech

To understand the significance of magitech there is something that must be understood about the magic of my world. Enchantment as it is commonly portrayed in fiction with the exception of priests ability to permanently bless/curse items, doesn't exist. Prima the essence of life and magic used by both Adepts and Elemental spirits is at once a force and substance. Prima is not data that can be written into an object in order change its properties, nor does it posses volition, it does little without the direction of a thinking being, and constructs formed from it are fragile and transient by nature.

Magitech was developed to overcome these problems and make magic available for use when magic users were not. The functions of magitech are myriad and include items that do not actively utilize prima; one of the most infamous is the inhibitor spike, when driven into the body of an Adept it will render them powerless, its effects on mundanes is unpleasant as well.

Elemental Vessels and Elemental-engines are among the most widely produced magitech, for their simplicity and robust nature. The vessel holds the elemental and the engine forces it either act in a predetermined manor, or obey the will of the items wielder. All magitech requires the use of magic material, all of which are rare and difficult to synthesize, elemental vessels and engines also require the use of elemental-essences.

The magical materials are.

Storm-wrought: a substance created when matter is struck by bolts of ultra high frequency burst of prima that unhealed during Prima Storms. Instead of being completely destroyed some times a small percentage of a struck objects mass will instead be transmuted into Storm-wrought, the most magically dynamic material.

Necrotite: Death stone, a vital element in organic life it normal decays along with the body however a small amount of it will petrify instead,leaving behind trace amounts of the mineral. Necrotite ingots were first found in places were there had been many corpses or the place were a single massive beast had died; the mineral only being found in the presence of death is the reason for the name. A process for the artificial extraction of Necrotite would eventually be developed, and the subsequent cause of a great many atrocities as people were bought or captured for the purpose of rendering them down for Necrotite.


Florystal: Is are rare vegetable-mineral taxonomy hybrid,it grows by drawing minerals and some organic compound from the ground. Next to Storm-wrought Florystal is the most magical-dynamic substance known to exist, with added benefit is that Florystal can cultivated. Unfortunately for magitech industry Florystal grows at an extremely slow pace. Under optimum conditions it takes decades for Florystal to reach maturity, and under anything thing else a century or more. Another complication is the phenomenon of "strengthening", as live-Florystal ages its ability to handle larger and higher frequency magic currents as well as contain more powerful elementals increases. The strengthening process doesn't begin until after a Florystal blossom has reached maturity; high-grade Florystal represents an at least two hundred year investment. The final hurdle for the magitech industry is Florystal's extreme resistance to modification by magic, do to its highly discordant structure transmutation all but impossible, and its natural aura interferes with attempts to use life(anima arts) to accelerate its grow.

Elemental Essences: The essences are crystallized form of an Element in its pure amalgamated form, such substances do not exist in the world, and found when the planes energy bleeds into the world. Essences can also be harvested from the bodies of dead elementals. Essence are extremely useful in crafting any magitech that is going to deal with elemental manipulation.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Addendum.

• Adepts and Elemental Are sorted in terms of metaphysical strength into three main Circles of powers, 1st,2nd and third. Within each circle there are three orders of power, making for a total of nine levels. The Fourth circle is the stuff of myths and legends, power at this scale is literally god like. Anything at that level begins to effect the wyrd simply by existing. Their will and subconsciouses desires bleed into the wyrd and subtly transform the world into a reflection of their souls. They also attract followers, and begin to generate priests. The fourth circle, is also precarious point at which to exist, because the cosmos is contently attempting expel beings of such magnitude. The mortal realm cannot accommodate that much metaphysical power and will begin suffering "glitches" and localized collapses,which if not resolved will begin a cascade failure if not resolved. Fourth Circle beings are forced to devote a significant percentage of their strength to counteract being displaced into the Void(the abode of the gods and world outside the world), and mitigating their negative effect on environment.
  
  
• To every rule there is an exception, and there are some mortals who have the ability to manipulate the wyrd naturally. This sorcerous power is the rarest of all metaphysical abilities. Few even know that exists, most think it nothing more than myth. Sorcerers can consciously twist the wyrd freely changing the "fates" of things around them. The stronger the resonance between the Sorcerer and the thing to be effected, the more efficiently it can be. However for this power their is great price, every act of twisting the wyrd slowly contaminates the Sorcerer with toxic-karma that will eventually kill them. Unless they eject that toxic-karma into the environment, tainting whatever area that they perform the purge in with errant(predominately bad) luck, as well as anything in the area at the time Sorcerer included. This errant luck will eventually dissipate ,but many do not survive long enough for that to happen.

 

[skip.knox]

This is a system both imaginative and rigorous. Have you written stories within it? I resist doing this sort of detailed work because I worry that it will constrain my story telling or even undercut it. At the same time, though, I wonder if my worry isn't akin to worrying about "too much" outlining. Done right, it may actually help the story telling. Perhaps my logic doesn't hold up. Logic sometimes provides good cover to the lazy.

 

[Deleted member 4265]

It's all very interesting and well thought out, but if you're using this for a story, I question the need for all of it. I can understand having multiple types of magic within a story, but with four of them, each highly detailed in and of itself, I wonder if having so many would make your magic system seem unfocused. It'd be a lot for readers to keep track of. You might end up barely scratching the surface of each one. Sometimes less is more. That being said, if you can juggle that many magic systems in a narrative without making it confusing for the reader, do it.

I also question who can do magic? Some of them seem as though they are learned, while others seem to be innate. Also can a person practice multiple forms of magic, or is that not possible?

 

[Logos&Eidos]

This is a system both imaginative and rigorous. Have you written stories within it? I resist doing this sort of detailed work because I worry that it will constrain my story telling or even undercut it. At the same time, though, I wonder if my worry isn't akin to worrying about "too much" outlining. Done right, it may actually help the story telling. Perhaps my logic doesn't hold up. Logic sometimes provides good cover to the lazy.

I have the beginings of a story, heck I have two stories that are thousands of years apart, I didn't want to do anything until I knew how the world worked and now I know enough. This is the least dissatisfied that I have ever been with a set of magic system.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

It's all very interesting and well thought out, but if you're using this for a story, I question the need for all of it. I can understand having multiple types of magic within a story, but with four of them, each highly detailed in and of itself, I wonder if having so many would make your magic system seem unfocused. It'd be a lot for readers to keep track of. You might end up barely scratching the surface of each one. Sometimes less is more. That being said, if you can juggle that many magic systems in a narrative without making it confusing for the reader, do it.

I also question who can do magic? Some of them seem as though they are learned, while others seem to be innate. Also can a person practice multiple forms of magic, or is that not possible?

I have multiple types of magic for a number of reasons. My sources of inspiration manga/anime,Jrpgs,Wrpgs and table top games have worlds with multiple types of magics. So I built multiple types into my world, each type of magic serves as distinct role in the world and story so I don't think that things will get to cluttered;besides I have no intention of giving them all an equal degree of focus.


Wyrd magic. which is barring the freak occurrence that are sorcerers, accessible only through being able to channel a gods numina. This magic is in theory available to anyone who has the sensitivity to the gods and the open heart connect with their power. It is the rarest of all forms of magic, even among the priesthood, any person with this power would if discovered be considered a minor religious figure.

The Egotist Way. is so ubiquities that it is not only considered non-magical,its not viewed as even remotely supernatural. Anyone can learn it if they put in the time and effort;though only the rare master develop the abilities that we would see as supernatural.

Shamanism. The ability to establish a rapport with an elemental is something that can in theory be taught to anyone. Most who attempt the training do not develop the elemental-rapport, the majority of Shaman those are those that posses the ability naturally.

Adeptery. The generation of a prima-manus is a largely innate, with majority of Adepts developing their abilities naturally. The ability can awakened artificially through specialized Egotist techniques or by having an Adept attempt to "spark" a mundane.


it's definitely possible for a person to acquire multiple forms of magic, Adepts and Shaman employ egotism to focus their minds and those that developed their abilities through training instead of naturally manifesting them, did so through Egoist practices.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

It's good that you've put so much work into your magic world build, but in my view it's far too complicated. Most readers aren't going to be able to make heads or tails of it - especially in a short story. You need to have a simplified focus that a person who hasn't spent months or years helping you with your world build will understand at a glance. Also I'd suggest using more user friendly terms.

Wyrd magic for example can best be described as luck or chance based on some sort of divine connection to the gods. (Also if it's divine based practitioners should probably be priests of some sort.)

Egotists Way is a strange term. In something like D and D you'd be talking about a monk build and not a form of magic at all. I'd probably be tempted to call it Chi or something similar and just leave it at that.

As for adeptery, this seems like true wizardry to me and as far as I can tell you've divided it into two sides. One part concerned with summoning this prima stuff - there are too many prima terms and I'd simplify it all to just prima - and using it. The other part is concerned with taking / controlling forces already present in the world like fire and electricity. So if I've got that right, why not just say that? Also considering you talk about elementals under the term shamanism I'd dump the term elements completely in relation to adeptery and call them forces or something similar. Avoid confusion.

As for Shamanism - why call it that at all? My thought is that since this branch of magic is completely concerned with summoning elementals, why not simply call it elementalism.

Remember your reader is coming at your books completely fresh. He has no idea of your world build, and he wants to be able to relate whatever you tell him to things he understands. Throwing dozens of terms at him that he doesn't know isn't going to help him.

Hope that helps and apologies if it's too harsh.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Hi,

It's good that you've put so much work into your magic world build, but in my view it's far too complicated. Most readers aren't going to be able to make heads or tails of it - especially in a short story. You need to have a simplified focus that a person who hasn't spent months or years helping you with your world build will understand at a glance. Also I'd suggest using more user friendly terms.

Wyrd magic for example can best be described as luck or chance based on some sort of divine connection to the gods. (Also if it's divine based practitioners should probably be priests of some sort.)

Egotists Way is a strange term. In something like D and D you'd be talking about a monk build and not a form of magic at all. I'd probably be tempted to call it Chi or something similar and just leave it at that.

As for adeptery, this seems like true wizardry to me and as far as I can tell you've divided it into two sides. One part concerned with summoning this prima stuff - there are too many prima terms and I'd simplify it all to just prima - and using it. The other part is concerned with taking / controlling forces already present in the world like fire and electricity. So if I've got that right, why not just say that? Also considering you talk about elementals under the term shamanism I'd dump the term elements completely in relation to adeptery and call them forces or something similar. Avoid confusion.

As for Shamanism - why call it that at all? My thought is that since this branch of magic is completely concerned with summoning elementals, why not simply call it elementalism.

Remember your reader is coming at your books completely fresh. He has no idea of your world build, and he wants to be able to relate whatever you tell him to things he understands. Throwing dozens of terms at him that he doesn't know isn't going to help him.

Hope that helps and apologies if it's too harsh.

Cheers, Greg.

I think that its all quite simple, then again as anime/manga and jrpg fan I'm accustom to worlds with multiple magic systems. The magic systems are all very simple, and I plan to explain there workings as it becomes relevant.

Wyrding is the in universe technical for "divine magic", only scholars of the arcane actually use the term. To the common its just
priestly or holy powers.


The egotist's way, well ego is latin for "I" and in the common parlance it means self, an egotist is someone focused on themselves. Thus the egotist's way is the art of the self, an alternate name for the art is the Inner-Path. If the Way doesn't seem like magic, then I have done my job. As I said before I'm a fan of manga/anime and Jrpgs and Ki/chi powers are a near ubiquitous concept. It's also a deeply ingrained cultural concept, even in more realistic or science based settings the idea that people especially martial artists, can just train themselves to the point that they can do things that would otherwise be impossible is often still present.


Adeptery its name is reference to one of my inspirations the Adepts. Prima is the mana or Force of my setting. Manus is latin for hand, so prima-manus is is energy/force-hand. I developed the concept to help me visualize and explain magic-users "touch" the world with their power; in the story prima-manus is going to be contract into primanus. I think that you missed something, everything is prima the division is in how Adepts use it. Native Arts are available to any Adept, Elemental Arts can only be used by an Adept with the right affinities.



Redundancy is something I'm concerned about, my intent was to call elemental spirits Eidolon and their tamers Eidolist. shaman was really a term of connivance for the post here.


Terminology is something that concerns me greatly, to change the flavor of the world not just the magic I have deviated from a lot of the common terms. Adepts instead of Mages or Psions, prima-materia instead of mana, Eidolon instead of spirit. I want people to just learn the world as they go, to figure out the how and whys of the world from experiencing it, rather than me having to explain what everything is.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Just to comment on your last paragraph - why? I understand changing terms for flavour etc, but changing them to terms that most people won't recognise or understand is doing far more than that. And why do you want people / readers to have to "learn" your world? Is this a technical manual you're writing for a course? Will there be an exam? Grading?

To me this is going too far. You like the world building. You're invested in it. I get that. But are your potential readers? For the most part I suspect they want to read something they can understand at a glance. Remember the KISS principle. They want a story they can understand. They don't want to be going to appendices of technical data to try and make sense of things.

You're setting this out like it's an RPG / D and D, and that's fine for those formats. Fans of D and D / RPG's will go and read the technical stuff and spend hours, days and months studying the details so they can create the best build etc or defeat certain challenges. I do it myself. But this is a novel isn't it?

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Hi,

Just to comment on your last paragraph - why? I understand changing terms for flavour etc, but changing them to terms that most people won't recognise or understand is doing far more than that. And why do you want people / readers to have to "learn" your world? Is this a technical manual you're writing for a course? Will there be an exam? Grading?

To me this is going too far. You like the world building. You're invested in it. I get that. But are your potential readers? For the most part I suspect they want to read something they can understand at a glance. Remember the KISS principle. They want a story they can understand. They don't want to be going to appendices of technical data to try and make sense of things.

You're setting this out like it's an RPG / D and D, and that's fine for those formats. Fans of D and D / RPG's will go and read the technical stuff and spend hours, days and months studying the details so they can create the best build etc or defeat certain challenges. I do it myself. But this is a novel isn't it?

Cheers, Greg.

If the magic is causing you problems just wait until I start talking about the races, the single greatest ancestral cultural divide is between the Diurnal and the Nocturnal, with the Crepuscular caught in the middled.

Every science fiction and fantasy setting has rules(the hows and whys) that must be learned by the audience, and mine is no different. I plan on explain the world its races, magic and current political climate, as it becomes relevant to the plot. How difficult is it really to learn an idea through seeing it in action, its all about context and correlative thinking if X is then Y must be so.

If Adepts are described as drawing in prima to use their abilities, then prima is the supernatural fuel for their powers, and if you have come across the term prima-materia, their is a decent chance that a fantasy fan has at some point, then you get a little added bounce for getting a reference.

Show don't tell is the mantra drummed into writers, well I think that both have to be used at nearly the same time to convey the most information amount of information in the shortest ammount of time, which is vital for what I'm working on because in some ways its very different than what average fantasy fan is used to; and be forth coming my setting is science/space fantasy, rather than medieval fantasy.

I've learned so much reading gaming manuals, that I would love to see this world of mine as an rpg some day. The hows and whys of magic are all background, and will only brought to the forefront when relevant to the plot.

There are several weastern fantasy novels that have all done to a degree With their magic what i plan to do with mine whether its stated to all be magic or not.

Wheel Of Time.
Malazan Books of the Fallen.
The King Killer Chronicles.

So I know that it can be done.

 

[BaneStar007]

I joined the site to let you know that its a pretty standard system to world build far more than you ever write, What you've written is great, and well done for taking the time to ensure that your world has continuity, nothing worse for me than to be half way through a book, (or worse a series) and the author breaks their own world rules, not as a plot hook or something to ask 'hey, did you notice what I did there, that's relevant to later', but just poor writing. It breaks all belief in the book and the author and I just cannot read them anymore, I've returned books after encountering such flaws, and given negative reviews on sites.

A great set of books which does it nicely was by Trudi Canavan, she had a set of magic rules laid out in her first few books, but then the next few books took a different path, it felt odd, but not broken, then she revealed in a whole new series, set 1,000 years in the past, that magic was split into these paths by an event, because she world built the magic prior to the books, it all tied together nicely, but she only wrote about one small part of one small school for the first three books.

So Well done.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

I joined the site to let you know that its a pretty standard system to world build far more than you ever write, What you've written is great, and well done for taking the time to ensure that your world has continuity, nothing worse for me than to be half way through a book, (or worse a series) and the author breaks their own world rules, not as a plot hook or something to ask 'hey, did you notice what I did there, that's relevant to later', but just poor writing. It breaks all belief in the book and the author and I just cannot read them anymore, I've returned books after encountering such flaws, and given negative reviews on sites.

A great set of books which does it nicely was by Trudi Canavan, she had a set of magic rules laid out in her first few books, but then the next few books took a different path, it felt odd, but not broken, then she revealed in a whole new series, set 1,000 years in the past, that magic was split into these paths by an event, because she world built the magic prior to the books, it all tied together nicely, but she only wrote about one small part of one small school for the first three books.

So Well done.

Thank you, it feels weired to actually have something done after working on these ideas for years, I've finished the prep-work now I actually have to do something with it; which I have more than view ideas about .

Every type of magic is meant to serve a different role in the story, so I don't think that things will be overly crowded.